


Sleeping Duty

by archea2



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s14e05 Nightmare Logic, M/M, Samulet (mentioned), Sleeping Together, Tenderness, Two hours Sam seriously?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 03:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: "Six hours," Dean parries. "You signed up for them, and you’re gonna get’em. Now do your eating an’ praying" –and leave the loving to megoes unsaid – "or whatever thanks you feel Chuck is still entitled over your munchies. Back in ten."





	Sleeping Duty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [claire_cawdor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/claire_cawdor/gifts).



_Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,_

_The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,_

_Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,_

_The nourisher in life’s feast._

William Shakespeare, _Macbeth_

 

 

"Eat." And Dean stabs his index at the air, two inches above the heap of nondescript green leaves. Sam is pretty sure he’s read a Lao Tseu quote about the folly of examining a wise man’s finger when he points you to the moon. But that’s not the moon, and this is Dean, Sam's Dean, carrying a tray laden with…

"You got me lettuce," Sam says, carefully. He rubs at the phantom grit in his eyes, his exhaustion levels well past three-syllable words. "And milk."

"No crap, Sherlock." Dean sets the tray on Sam’s bed, crooks two fingers enticingly, and, upon Sam’s Tseulike show of dismissal, snaps them. Loudly. "It’s got lactucarium. Helps you relax. Beats weed any day, I’m told."

"How d’you even – did you text Cas for – wait. Are these _cherries_ on the side?" Dean’s index is back to sighting the plate and Sam’s mouth in turn, pointedly, but Sam’s brain is too caught up in its surreal web of deduction to pause. "Did you… pick the cherries out of your pie for me? Oh my god, Dean." Trust his brother to break his heart and treat him to a groanworthy visual in one fall swoop.

"Six hours," Dean parries. "You signed up for them, and you’re gonna get’em. Now do your eating and praying" – _and leave the loving to me_ goes unsaid – "or whatever thanks you feel Chuck is still entitled over your munchies. Back in ten."

He is, true to self, whatever brittle _self_ clings to Dean these days. In the lamplight, his eyes are one part green to nine parts pupils, his own weariness darkly visible. He’s washed, as has Sam, the two of them in clean tees and boxers – old post-hunt drill, taking the touch and scent of _clean_ as close to the skin as may do the trick. But as Sam hands him the plate, mostly empty, and Dean turns his face and neck back to the door, Sam spots it.

The – blandness.

The ebbing away of expression, as Dean prepares to be alone with himself. It's like Dean still feels that Michael’s grace burnt his soul, leaving a lump of coal in his fleshly envelop, Santa’s dark gift to the bad kid; like Dean becomes his own phantom pain, his missing limb, once he’s alone. Sam suspected it already, but now, in that strange second wind which is known to come in the extremity of fatigue, his eyes clear up to the fact. 

" _Dean!_ ’"

It’s only a matter of seconds before Dean banishes himself to pain, so Sam makes it quick. Digs hard, deep enough down to let Sammy resurface in his voice with barely a splash, and sees Dean waver. Then Dean is back, but he’s stumbling – struggling – even as Sam rolls over on one hip and holds the covers up.

"Sam, it’s... it's too risky. What if – what if he’s still –" 

Half-spoken words, sleep-torn, letting Dean own up to his worst boogie fear. Sam shakes his head in fierce denial, reaches for his brother’s hand. His body is too tired to do much more than tug, but his voice is gathering strength for two. "He’s not. I can tell. Dean, remember when I’d lost my soul? How you guessed, how you felt the wrong of it, the moment you held me? Same here." They’d hugged, once, badly, before the shock of estrangement had taken Dean away at the sight of their twenty or so live-ins. "Come to me, come back. Mom is gone, and nobody else will mind what we do to get peace." The breath – sob – of exhaustion swells his next short words. "Too long, De."

Dean’s knees give in first, pushing him to the edge of Sam’s bed, only for Sam to half catch, half pull him against him. They let their bodies arrange them clumsily into the old jigsaw, the warm, mutual abandonment of weight. It _has_ been too long. Sam recalls Dean’s door, impenetrable, the night before they left to visit Mom’s grave one last time – recalls Dean’s harsh  _I’m not putting my Molotov hands on you_. Now Dean’s hands are surveying his back, his neck, strong fingers meeting warm pressure points, dealing out comfort. Sam closes his eyes and lets his lips touch Dean’s solid clavicle. Their breaths cross insubstantial paths; slower, thicker, catching up with each other.

"Do you miss it?"

Dean’s voice is low, like the one lamp they’ve both left on, a tacit agreement, burning a veiled gold. Sam has let go of thought, but his lips understand.

"Do you? You never put it back on." Lips questing, questioning – cushioning the next doubt with warm air. "Tell me this isn't you doing penance."

Dean's nostrils scoff, his touch wider, full, slow strokes of his palm to Sam’s back. "Please. No, but – the thing doubles as a Chuck duck-call, right? And I was too mad at Chuck – even more so after you nursed his owies and the bastard let you rot in pain for days in return."

"Figures."

"Still mad, by the way." Dean’s hands fold up his tee, spread their undercover warmth on Sam’s tenderer skin, kindling the good kind of shiver. Magic fingers, lulling him deeper into repose, trailing the long expanse from the back of Sam's head to the jut of his hip, over and around the day’s bruises, their invisible ink quickening to light under Sam’s eyelids. Line, circle, line. The shape they build up is familiar - Sam revised it five years ago, locked in his room and tight-lipped fury. It’s a -

Softly, he turns in Dean’s arm; blocks the sigil’s path until he has his own fingers splayed over Dean’s and is taking them to his chest instead. Mirror-like, he starts the process again, backwards – left for right, up for down, waiting for Dean’s mind to open, because that’s what _this_ sigil does – unlocks, unfolds from the inside, breaking a way in for the intruder.

And Dean gets it. Dean gets it every time, if there are no words involved. Spreads his palm over the region of Sam’s heart, pleading for entrance, and buries his face into Sam’s hair. Sam blesses exhaustion, their Sesame; lets go of the childish, the rueful thought that settles upon him now and then at night, that he can no longer regress to a size that would let Dean fit him between Dean's shoulder dip and their entangled feet.

No need, though. Instead he lets Dean tighten his arm round his waist, an old, long-established grip, and a new assurance that Dean is never so much himself as when he is in Sam’s hold, the two of them indifferent to where _me_ ain’t and _you_ begins. Blood kin, bedfellows, soulmates.  _Let him bring on his hybrids,_ Sam thinks for Dean _. See how they measure up to ours_.

"Six hours," Dean slurs back. "…’n order, Chief." 

"Shhhh," Sam says, and strangely enough, his next inhale pushes his eyes open to morning. His room has no window, but the light comes in from another source – from the human, too human hurly-burly of sounds, feet and frying aromas. And from a lightness – fragile, newborn – in his rested mind, and from Dean’s face, friendly fierce, curled protectively over his pillow.

"Hey," he says, giving Dean’s clavicle a morning kiss. "Rise and shine, my brother."

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently, cherries - especially tart cherries, the sort used for pies - contain melatonin. Which also helps you sleep. I suspect Cas knows a lot more about healthy food habits than Jimmy Novak ever did.:)


End file.
